Honduras: Employment programs give young people hope

Though more than half of 1.4 million working-age youths do not study or work, 15,000 have benefited from government programs.

By Kay Valle

Infosurhoy.com

TEGUCIGALPA – Carlos Montes, the undersecretary of the Secretariat of Labor and Social Security (STSS), said the 775,000 of the 1.4 million working-age youths who aren’t employed or in school is a “serious problem.”

“If they do not find work, they don’t have the resources to continue studying,” he said, referring to those between the ages of 15 and 29.

The 775,000 represents 22.1% of the 3.5 million who are economically active in the Central American nation, according to the STSS. Honduras is home to 8.3 million residents, 65% of whom live in poverty, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE).

“I worked as a saleswoman in a used clothing store so I could finish my studies in commerce and public accounting, but I was fired before graduating [in 2007],” said Isis Jaqueline Andrade, a 24-year-old Tegucigalpa resident. “[Three years later] out of necessity, I took a job as a saleswoman in a used clothing store, earning less than [the minimum wage of] US$320 a month.”

In September 2012, the store closed and Andrade was unemployed again. Unlike many, she receives help from her parents while looking for a job.

Deputy Director of Employment of the STSS Carlos Madero said inflation and little economic growth during the past 30 years have caused a high youth unemployment rate.

The country’s economy grew less than 1% in 2012 compared to 3.6% in 2011 and 3.8% in 2010. Inflation reached 5.4% in 2012 and 5.2% in 2011, according to the INE.

But that’s not all.

The report “Employment Outlook 2012” by the International Labor Organization (ILO) indicates there are 20 million young people not integrated into the labor market or education system in Latin America.

There are short- and long-term consequences of youth unemployment, according to the head of the Department of Social Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH), Roberto Briceño.

“In the short-term, young people become obstacles to development because they depend on those who work and add to the population living in poverty,” he said. “In the long-term, the consequences are more crime, corruption, and an increased risk of falling under the control of gangs and organized crime.”

“It is necessary to define and develop strategies to involve young people in the country’s development, as they are the major players in the nation’s progress,” Briceño said.

To address the problem, the STSS created Proempleo programs in 2007 – targeting youth between the ages of 18 and 29 – and Mi Primer Empleo (“My First Employment”) to place youths between the ages 15 of 19 into entry-level jobs.

Proempleo has trained 9,414 youths in 115 occupational areas, Madero said.

About 175 companies that are members of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) in the cities of Cortés and Tegucigalpa support the project.

Nikki Ondina Cuéllar, 22, is among the beneficiaries of Proempleo.

After graduating from technical school in 2010, Ondina Cuéllar was unemployed, with no chance of obtaining higher education and needing to provide for her family.

Through Proempleo, she was trained by Unicomer, which is among the companies that support Proempleo.

Today, Ondina Cuéllar works with the company that trained her in user support in the administrative area. In addition, she studies marketing at UNAH and supports her family.

“My economic troubles were resolved by benefitting from this program. I can even help my younger siblings finish high school,” she said.

Meanwhile, Mi Primer Empleo has benefited 4,883 young people living in high-risk areas, Madero said.

“There are many young people who do not have the chance to go to school, and it’s very good that there are these kinds of programs so they can learn a trade that will help them succeed,” said Nancy Maricela Amaya Flores, 19, who used the program to get a job as a beauty stylist in Tegucigalpa.

To build on the momentum created by existing job-placement programs, the office of the Secretary of Labor established the National Employment Service of Honduras (SENAEH), which seeks to unite the supply and demand of the labor market at no cost.

Since 2012, SENAEH has placed 37% of 54,854 job candidates, Madero said.

“[The programs] are an effort to combat youth unemployment, reduce poverty, improve conditions of the employment system and provide decent jobs for young people,” Madero said.

Fighting guns with graffiti in Honduras

'American Gothic' graffiti with the farmer holding a M-16 instead of a pitchfork [Urban Maeztro/Al Jazeera]

Tegucigalpa has become one of the world's deadliest cities and one artist wants to highlight the problem through paint.

Romina Ruiz-Goiriena 

AlJazeera

Tegucigalpa, Honduras - It's almost sundown and a small sport utility vehicle glides through one of the most dangerous cities in the world which has been overrun by rival gangs and organised crime.

During the drive, dozens of Hondurans are seen making their way home, wary of the time to ensure they get there before dark. The SUV crosses a bridge and parks on the sidewalk, just two blocks away from the capital Tegucigalpa's red-light district.

It is here where Urban Maeztro, a 27-year-old ad agency employee turned street artist is preparing to send a message about violence in this Central American country. Armed with two boxes of spray paint cans, a notebook, and a Sharpie marker, he plans to take over the six-metre long wall.

"Every 87 minutes someone dies in Honduras from a firearm, and there are over 650,000 illegal weapons. This piece will speak to that," Maeztro tells Al Jazeera.

Tegucigalpa has become one of the world's deadliest cities with more than 87 homicides per 100,000 people - 10 times the rate considered an epidemic of violence by the World Health Organisation.

"This is a country where people and [political] parties plaster propaganda and slogans on walls. This is so cool and I'd rather see this."
- Denis Hernandez, delivery driver

The figure has increased more than 232 percent since 2005, according to the Autonomous National University of Honduras's Observatory of Violence.

"The one and only thing that people know about my country is the violence. It is what paints our reality," says the graffiti artist who began his project a year ago.

Maeztro only uses his street name, a pun of "Urban Master", to protect his identity, saying his work is illegal and dangerous.

Maeztro says he's been fired at with a weapon from a moving pick-up truck while performing his artwork. "It's a culture of intolerance. I disagree with you and I just kill you," he says.

Usually the artist dons a ski mask or a bandana to hide his identity, however, on a recent afternoon he agreed to show his face to during a graffiti assault.

New advertising

In a matter of seconds, Maeztro slaps on a thick coat of white paint on the wall as primer. 

He delineates a grotesque head with a green spray can - an outline reminiscent of Colombian figurative artist Fernando Botero's characters with an exaggerated and disproportionate volume, as well as scathing criticism.

He continues spraying on layer after layer. The head is now bright orange with coiffed hair and a moustache. The figure is biting a bullet.

"This character represents so many Honduran politicians," Maeztro says, pausing to smoke a cigarette and wait for a layer to dry. Dozens of cars slow down before the traffic light to observe the visual intervention.

A deliveryman suddenly pulls up on a motorcycle and asks Maeztro for his phone number; he has friends that are interested in learning how to do street art.

"This is a country where people and [political] parties plaster propaganda and slogans on walls," says the driver Denis Hernandez, 23. "This is so cool and I'd rather see this."

When asked why he decided to make the jump from an advertising agency to graffiti, Maestro says it was actually marketing and working at a company that taught him how streets could be used to send all kinds of messages.

"In advertising, I was taught billboards condition human behaviour. So as an artist, I take to the streets to engage, and attempt to generate a social consciousness".

Touring other works

Many other graffiti displays are scattered all over Tegucigalpa, and not all are political. Maeztro's first series was a set of mixed paintings where he used internationally renowned works such as Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" and Grant Wood's "American Gothic" to capture pedestrians' attention.

He then contrasts these images with a neon drawing of a weapon; the Mona Lisa holds a 9mm pistol, while in the Gothic piece, the farmer holds a neon magenta M-16 assault rifle instead of the iconic pitchfork.

"The 9mm gun is the most used handgun by the country's police," says Maeztro.

Like many Hondurans, Maeztro has been a victim of this country's increasingly problematic police force.

This country's police and army have come under fire in recent months with allegations that they have carried out and covered up extrajudicial assassinations targeting youths as part of so-called social cleansing campaigns.

A recent US State Department report said corruption and impunity continued to be serious problems within the national police, including allegations of violent crime, extortion, kidnappings and illegal detentions committed by officers.

At the abandoned street corner emblazoned with Maeztro's Mona Lisa with a gun, Eliezer Cruz, a 23-year-old bodyguard, walks by the painting.

When asked what he thinks he pauses. "She is very well known, but in many ways so is that gun."

New movement

While Maeztro's work began as a solo act, two other urban artists are now tagging and staging graffiti interventions alongside him.

Together, they have created the Garawa Collective. Garawa is a type of bird in the Garifuna language, an African-descended ethnic minority in Honduras.

Code, 38 and Caraqui, 27, both say they had been working in obscurity and independently until they met Maeztro.

"We saw the opportunity to do something together," says Code, who also spoke about Maeztro's work trying to recruit young gang members to keep them out of trouble.

Maeztro says urban artists will eventually take back Honduran streets. "The movement is growing. It's about people waking up and demanding something more, something better."

Trescientos mil nuevos pobres registra el país

La Tribuna

Estudios del Foro Social de la Deuda Externa y Desarrollo de Honduras (Fosdeh) señalan que alrededor de 300,000 hondureños cayeron en la pobreza entre el 2012 y este año, debido a las condiciones económicas adversas.

Nelson García, representante regional del organismo, mencionó que hacen “cálculos que en el 2012 se reincorporaron más de 200,000 nuevos pobres”, y a ese monto se le suman alrededor de 100,000 más que han surgido este año.

Según informes oficiales, la pobreza ha crecido en las principales ciudades del país, adonde llegan miles de personas desde la zona rural en busca de mejores condiciones de vida.

Sin embargo, una vez en las ciudades dan de frente con una realidad cruda de exclusión social, indican los sociólogos.

Los expertos indican que para enterarse de la magnitud del problema es conveniente hacer un recorrido por lugares donde la miseria se vive a diario, como  el crematorio municipal, donde las disputas por la basura han terminado en muertes. Hace dos décadas este sitio era un lugar tranquilo, con poca afluencia de personas.

MILES DE DESVENTURADOS

No obstante, ahora son contingentes de personas sumidas en la indigencia que sobreviven pepenando desechos sólidos como cartón y todo tipo de metales que venden en los alrededores.

En las ciudades de Tegucigalpa, Comayagüela y San Pedro Sula, se han vuelto escenas cotidianas ver personas hurgando en barriles de basura buscando alimento para subsistir.

Los expertos son del criterio que la precariedad de la sociedad hondureña está ligada a los altos índices de corrupción, la falta de consenso entre las clases políticas y que la mayoría del capital no responde a los intereses del país.

Además, por los pocos recursos para inversión social que destinan los gobiernos. Citan como ejemplo, el monto para infraestructura que se destinó este año en el Presupuesto General de Ingresos y Egresos, que no supera los 3,000 millones de lempiras.

Lo destinado es menos del cuatro por ciento del Presupuesto, mientras los estándares internacionales indican que para sacar a la población de la pobreza es necesario destinar más del diez por ciento de lo programado.

INSUFICIENTE INVERSIÓN

La pobreza se ha incrustado en el último gobierno por la incapacidad que se ha tenido en atraer inversión, opinan los empresarios.

Un informe presentado el 15 de mayo pasado por la Escuela de Negocios (ADEN, Bussines School), detalla que la violencia que afecta al país surte efectos directos en el clima de inversiones y coloca a Honduras en la posición 14 de competitividad a nivel de América Latina.

El estudio destaca que el país está estancado en la tabla baja de competitividad, compartiendo las últimas posiciones con países como Bolivia y Haití. En ese orden de ideas, el Banco Mundial (BM) externó su preocupación por el crecimiento de la pobreza, pese a que se han invertido grandes cantidades de dólares para reducir las brechas sociales.

El organismo multilateral considera necesario enfocar la lucha contra la pobreza desde la perspectiva del gasto, porque finalmente un aumento de la pobreza de cuatro puntos en dos años es grave.

Impulsan proyectos ambientales con ayuda de vecinos del sur

La iniciativa es apoyada por el PNUD. En los próximos meses se incluirán planes en turismo, desechos sólidos y protección de especies. 

Alexis Espinal  

El Heraldo

CHOLUTECA - Proteger el ecosistema y desarrollar las comunidades son objetivos que van de la mano al momento en que se impulsan programas microempresariales coordinados por el Programa de Pequeñas Donaciones (PPD) del PNUD.

Este tipo de planes se han desarrollado en la zona sur durante los últimos cuatro años, iniciativas que han sido exitosas gracias a la respuesta de las comunidades.

A causa de esta situación, en las últimas semanas se aprobaron 10 nuevos proyectos enmarcados en el tema de recolección de desechos, turismo y protección de especies marinas.

Hugo Galeano, director del PPD, dijo que en la actualidad se involucra a jóvenes y mujeres en los proyectos.

A nivel de turismo se han conformado 12 microempresas que se encargarán de promover el turismo, “de forma específica se trabajará en la comunidad costera El Venado”, dijo Galeano.

La promoción de las comunidades y atención de los visitantes se plantea como medio para generar oportunidades laborales en la zona y con ello disminuir las labores de pesca.

“Lo que pretendemos es que la población que ha vivido de la pesca y venta de los productos del mar tenga otras opciones para agenciarse fondos económicos”, agregó.

La inversión que se realizará será de 3.6 millones de lempiras.El financiamiento ha sido gestionado con el Fondo Mundial para el Medio Ambiente (FMAM), a través del Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo.

En el proyecto se involucrarán 12,800 personas residentes en las áreas costeras del golfo de Fonseca.

Los recursos económicos son manejados de forma directa por las microempresas con la finalidad de transparentar las actividades e inversión de los recursos económicos.

De acuerdo con Jorge Hernández, microempresario, luego de que la zona ya no está dando el suficiente producto marino a causa de la sobreexplotación a la cual ha estado sometida, es necesario promover nuevas oportunidades.

“Nuestras familias realizarán prácticas de conservación de las especies marítimas y de las zonas protegidas”, manifestó el beneficiado.

Programa mundial El PPD del FMAM fue establecido en 1992, año de la Cumbre de la Tierra celebrada en Río de Janeiro.

Por medio del PPD se estimulan iniciativas locales de grupos que viven en zonas de amortiguamiento consideradas como reservas naturales protegidas. Se trabaja en cinco áreas focales que son: biodiversidad, cambio climático, aguas internacionales, degradación de la tierra y eliminación de los contaminantes orgánicos persistentes, a través del trabajo con organizaciones comunitarias.Los grupos que por lo general se involucran son patronatos, juntas de agua, grupos indígenas, grupos de mujeres, cooperativas, empresas campesinas, pescadores asociados, sociedades colectivas de campesinos, comités de vigilancias, entre otros. 

Ahorrar para crecer: la yuca

FAO

Save and Grow: Cassava es la primera de una serie de guías sobre la aplicación práctica del modelo agrícola de la FAO “Ahorrar para crecer” a cultivos y sistemas agrícolas específicos en pequeñas explotaciones.

La guía, que se basa en conclusiones de investigaciones y en experiencias sobre el terreno realizadas en fincas de África, Asia, América Latina y el Caribe, presenta un enfoque respetuoso con el medio ambiente para la explotación más intensiva de la yuca. Muchas de las prácticas recomendadas combinan conocimientos tradicionales con tecnologías modernas adaptadas a las necesidades de los productores en pequeña escala.

Lea más aquí.

Improving education standards in Honduras: A long road ahead

Universal access to education in Honduran rural areas like Nahuaterique is a goal yet to be achieved

The Guardian

Every passing car gives him hope.

Juan listens carefully to every sound, ready to thumb a lift whenever a car passes by. Sometimes, he is lucky and he can jump in the back of a pickup. Most of the time, he has to keep walking. Three hours to go and another three to come back. It's a long way for a thirteen-year-old child to walk to school, but it's his way of life.

Juan lives in a remote rural area in the mountains of Nahuaterique, land originally belonging to El Salvador that was transferred to Honduras in 1992. Although 6,500 people live in this area, the roads are still unpaved, there are no supermarkets nor pharmacies and the only health centre in town is often closed.

Two decades ago, there weren't any schools in Nahuaterique. Today, the situation has improved and there are 11 centres of education. Still, universal access to education in Honduran rural areas like Nahuaterique is a goal yet to be achieved.

According to a 2010 report by the Honduran Commission of Human Rights, approximately 220,000 young people, roughly 10 percent of the population between the ages of five and 17, have no access to the education system. Amongst these children, 75.3 percent live in rural areas.

"Our main objective is to provide education to all young people," says Marco Antonio Perez Ventura, director of Nahuaterique primary school. "We want to guarantee high scholastic standards, but the main problem is funding. We have no money for textbooks, nor for school equipment and building renovations."

Amongst the many problems affecting rural areas, Ventura underlines the lack of opportunities for children who want to pursue higher education. According to a 2012 official report, only three out of ten Honduran young people have access to secondary education.

"We encourage our youth to follow professional careers," says Ventura. "But many pupils at the age of 13 leave school to start work in the fields, because there are no secondary schools nearby. To help overcome this problem, we are working with the Instituto Hondureño de Educación por Radio (IHRE) on their distance learning radio project."

This programme was launched in 1989 by Jesuit missionaries. It offers opportunities for high quality learning to anyone who, for whatever reason, cannot access education.

"Some teachers give their free time to help run this project," explains Ventura. "The government doesn't wish to open a secondary school here, so at the moment this is our only option. Currently, we have 75 students following the course. Many of our young people work in the fields in the morning and then walk three or four hours to attend school in the afternoon."

In a vicious cycle that is hard to break; poverty hinders access to education and lack of education leads to growing poverty. The 2006 Honduras Poverty Assessment from the World Bank states that low levels of education are inextricably linked to low levels of economic growth.

Lesvia Rosa Lopez, a teacher at the primary school Marco Aurelio in Marcala, has been working with rural and urban schools and has noticed many differences.

"In Marcala parents are more aware of the importance of school attendance," she says. "However, in the rural areas numerous children miss many months of school and they stay at home to help their parents, especially during the coffee harvest seasons."

Yet, Lopez highlights how supportive rural communities can be. Parents help each other and contribute as much as they can to buy equipment for the school.

To foster community participation in rural schools, Honduras in 1999 launched PROHECO (Proyecto Hondureño de Educación Comunitaria), a community-based education program funded by World Bank. By 2005, more than 2,000 PROHECO schools had been established.

In PROHECO schools teachers are hired by local school boards, not by the Ministry of Education. The system, though, is flawed. As noted by the political scientist, Daniel Altschuler, the ruling parties tend to replace teachers with party activists and give positions in the schools just to their followers, undermining the parent organisations' autonomy.

"There is a problem of political patronage taking over the programme," says Altschuler. "Most of the studies carried out by the donors community about PROHECO don't recognise that this is happening. The first important step is to identify the problem, to monitor it and then to work out a solution."

The Honduran government in recent years has launched several initiatives to improve the education system. Honduras spends 7.3 percent of its GDP on public education - more than any other Latin American country. Unfortunately though, greater investment has not resulted in higher education standards.

"When politics is involved in the education sector it ruins everything," comments Lopez. "Last year the government promised a scholarship of 10,000 lempiras (525 dollars) for the poorest families, but in our school not one child received the money. This grant is given out only to the children of the followers of the ruling party."

The situation that exists within PROHECO schools and the ongoing endemic corruption doesn't leave much room for optimism, but there are some glimmers of hope emerging from some community-based initiatives. According to the research of Fernando Yitzack Pavon, Improving Educational Quality in Honduras, decentralisation programs are a key strategy to increasing enrolment, strengthening community participation and improving efficiency.

This is particularly true in the case of small-scale projects run by local cooperatives. Edith Villanueva is the social secretary of COMUCAP, a cooperative of women farmers who are fighting for the social, economic and political development of their communities.

"Since I was a child my dream was to study, but I couldn't because my parents were really poor," says Villanueva. "I felt this was a serious obstacle in my life."

Recognising that education is key to breaking the vicious cycle of poverty, COMUCAP is investing in education programs.

"Our cooperative produces Fair Trade coffee," explains Villanueva. "Each year we invest the Fair Trade premium in grants for the children of COMUCAP members. Education is a priority, because if these children can study, then they will be able to work with our organisation in the future."

Approximately 40 percent of the Honduran population is under the age of 14. With such a young society the hopes for change are high and the younger generation are increasingly more aware of the importance of getting an educational qualification.

The road to improve the education system in rural areas is still long. But long and bumpy roads are not something Juan and the Honduran youth are afraid of. They keep walking.

Voluntarios se esfuerzan por salvar belleza del guacamayo

El Tiempo 

Copán Ruinas - En el Valle de Copán se podía observar hace un tiempo atrás cómo una gran cantidad de guaras rojas surcaba el cielo de esa zona occidental, pero ahora todo ha cambiado.

La caza furtiva para venta y domesticación del ave y la destrucción de su hábitat han causado que la población del guacamayo haya disminuido drásticamente hasta convertirse en una especie en peligro de extinción, según la enciclopedia Honduras Educacional.

Para ayudar a la conservación de esta ave, la Asociación Copán creó un proyecto llamado “Guaras en Libertad, La Belleza Regresa”, donde se protege y se promueve la reproducción de esta especie para posteriormente dejarla en libertad.

“GUARAS EN LIBERTAD, LA BELLEZA REGRESA”
Fundado en febrero de 2011, este proyecto se inició con el objetivo de reintroducir a la guara roja en el Valle de Copán y en las zonas vecinas donde fue prácticamente eliminada.

La Macaw Mountain Bird Reserve (Reserva de Aves Montaña Guara), junto con el Parque Arqueo-ecológico de Copán, trabajan en el cuidado y la procreación de estas aves con ayuda mayormente de personal voluntario.

La capacitación de estos voluntarios se imparte por módulos educativos mediante la K´inich Children´s Museum que está supervisada por la Asociación Copán. 

El personal y los voluntarios se encargan de la alimentación y la construcción de nidos y espacios para el ave para que, una vez estén listas, se les deje en libertad.

Entre la Montaña Guara y el parque hay unas 30 guaras volando libres, 5 aves bebés y 7 huevos que pronto eclosionarán.

Actualmente no se tiene un registro de cuantas hembras y cuantos machos hay, ya que para saberlo se necesita un caro examen de sangre.

AVES EN LIBERTAD
Para poder cuidar de las aves puestas en libertad se practica un monitoreo en el parque y en el valle. Se lleva un registro de su salud, de los bebés nacidos, de las parejas de aves que han anidado y también hasta donde se les ha visto volar, algunas se han internado 20 kilómetros dentro del parque.

La población juega un papel importante en estas tareas ya que son quienes avisan a la institución donde han observado a los guacamayos volar.

Como la casi total desaparición de la guara roja en esta zona se debe a la falta de educación de la población, la Asociación Copán esta trabajando con escuelas para concientizar a las niñas y niños sobre porque es importante cuidar de esta ave.

Con esto se pretende cambiar en la juventud la idea de que esta ave es para tenerla como mascota. En vez de capturarla y venderla se quiere inculcar el respeto a la libertad del guacamayo.

Estos módulos se imparten a lo largo del periodo escolar. Son nueve módulos, cada uno impartido mensualmente por un instructor capacitado, donde se enseña todo lo referente al ave, su hábitat, sus características, su dieta, la manera de protegerlas y más.

Desde 2011 se viene realizando esta actividad con centros educativos; en dicho año se impartieron los cursos en 38 escuelas, en  2012 en 12 instituciones y actualmente se está educando a 780 niños.

FESTIVAL DE LAS AVES
El Festival de las Aves es una acción que se viene realizando cada año desde la creación del proyecto Guaras en Libertad y se espera se convierta en un evento anual. Esta actividad es una manera de comenzar el año escolar.

En el Parque Central de Copán se hacen presentaciones, exposiciones de manualidades y obras de arte hechas en los módulos educativos del año anterior, hay danzas e información acerca de la guara roja. También se exponen aves para que quien quiera se pueda tomar fotos.

SÉPALO

La guara roja es el ave nacional de Honduras desde 1993 cuando se emitió el decreto ejecutivo no. 36-39

Lloyd Davidson, dueño y operador de Montaña Guara, ha anunciado que todas las guaras rojas confiscadas por el gobierno serán donadas al Parque Arqueo-ecológico de Copán.

Guacamayo, una de las aves más grandes de su especie
La guara roja, científicamente llamada Ara Macao, pertenece a la familia de las psitácidas, que la constituyen todas las aves con pico curvo y grueso como los pericos, las cotorras, los loros y demás especies parecidas.

El guacamayo es una de las aves más grandes de esta familia, llegando a medir unos 90 centímetros de longitud y pesando 1 kilogramo.

Su hábitat son las selvas tropicales de tierras bajas, bosques abiertos, llanuras húmedas y sabanas, tanto en las zonas montañosas como aquellas cercanas a los océanos Pacífico y Atlántico.

Buscan preferentemente los climas tórridos, calientes y húmedos con temporadas secas cortas.

La dieta de esta ave está constituida esencialmente de granos, pero también se alimenta de frutas, insectos, néctar, flores e incluso otras partes de la planta como las hojas y el tallo.

En Honduras se piensa que a finales del siglo XIX esta ave abarcaba el 60% del territorio nacional. A partir de la segunda mitad del siglo XX su distribución se restringía a la región del mar Caribe, el departamento de Colón y la Mosquitia.